Rex Murphy: Nine years later, tragedy replaced by farce

There are a number of holy books or sacred texts in the world. They constitute the core of some of the world’s major religions. It is generally thought to be, at the very least, simple good manners for people who have a strong belief in one of these holy books not to derogate, at least publicly, the holy book reverenced by another group. And most certainly it is thought to be but plain decency not to deliberately and ostentatiously set out to abuse, mock, defile or destroy the holy book of another group. For example, by burning a pile of them publicly after alerting the world to your deliberately disrespectful intent.

This is, indeed, what one cunning or dim-witted, rabid or naive, publicity genius or blundering innocent, self-proclaimed Christian pastor, Terry Jones, declared he was going to do with some 200 copies of the Koran Saturday, being the ninth anniversary of the attacks on the Twin Towers and the Pentagon. That announcement set in motion an extraordinary story and one which opens troubling questions about the war on terror and the current engagement of Western military in Afghanistan and Iraq.

First, the story tells us that in some rather difficult-to-articulate sense, this war has taken on aspects that are fundamentally not serious. When extraneous, or circumstantial, or ancillary matters occupy centre stage, it is a clear sign, by definition, that the main business has been sidelined.

And what or who is more extraneous or ancillary, more truly irrelevant, than Pastor Jones? How could a genuine world issue, of cardinal depth and significance, be hostage to such a trivial player, to a pathetic and obvious publicity ploy by a man the world had never heard of?

Why is anyone paying attention to this guy? He’s not a new version of Billy Graham or even Jerry Falwell. He has no earned iconic standing. He’s a non-entity of a splinter church with a piddling 30 or 50 followers. What he does or intended to do is of no social, symbolic or geopolitical consequence whatsoever.

But what was really odd was how the great and powerful of the world reacted. All week, he was being beseeched by the mighty of the Earth to stop what he and his little band of true believers were proposing to do. There was the Vatican, there was Tony Blair. In Canada, Stephen Harper, Peter McKay and Michael Ignatieff weighed in. And General David Petraeus, the overlord of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, astonishingly proclaimed that Terry Jones’ stunt would undermine the “total effort” of the war in Afghanistan.

This sideline preacher’s gruesome little barbecue would jeopardize, in other words, the main front in the war on terror. In fact, Barack Obama himself has been publicly pleading with Jones to put off the event. And most tellingly, Obama’s Secretary of Defense, Robert Gates, undoubtedly under orders from the White House, went into direct personal discussion and negotiation with the Florida-based pastor to get him to change his plans.

What a spectacle. How did a publicity stunt in Florida become a fulcrum for success or failure in the war on terror?

There is something profoundly unserious here, undignified and immensely off base. The first General of the United States, and the Secretary of Defense of the greatest war machine in the history of the world are both deferring to some fringe evangelist for fear that he might … what? Might lose the war for them? If this is the splinter the war on terror is hanging on to then it is, I fear, a house of cards in both theatres.

Nor is it irrelevant that by Friday another, better known exhibitionist, Donald Trump, had inserted himself into this story. “Unreality” doesn’t come in single doses. So now (the cast was assembling), it was the Imam, the Pastor and the Donald. It’s like a parody apocalypse.

Nine years out from the horrors of Sept. 11, 2001, there will be people marking this day with all the solemnity that grief and memory can bring to it. There will be military families ruminating on their sacrifices. I’m not sure how the weird, absurd and — I think — irrational events out of Florida fit with these observances. The whole saga has usurped the great messages of determination and purpose that filled the months and days after 9/11.
National PostRex Murphy offers commentary weekly on CBC TV’s The National, and is host of CBC Radio’s Cross Country Checkup.